Help for the uninsured
In most developed countries, there’s no need for something like “Cover the Uninsured Week,” which begins on Monday, March 23. But until the day comes that this country recognizes access to health care is a right and not a privilege, then events such as the free health expo being held at Cobo Center will continue…
The $100 house on 20/20 tonight
Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert’s “Power House” (Photo: Mitch Cope) After Toby Barlow’s recent piece in The New York Times about a couple that moved to Detroit to buy a $100 home, it was only a matter of time before the story got more play. So we weren’t surprised when, last weekend, Design 99 and…
MIDWEST FEST ’09 BANDS ANNOUNCED
Yet another Michigan rock fest has been announced for this summer. The second Midwest Fest — which is scheduled for Tuesday, July 21st through Sunday, July 26th in Mount Pleasant — will be comprised of mostly hot Michigan bands, however. The promoters are promising 58 bands on four different stages during the event; five microbreweries…
Bridge moans: An earful for the Coast Guard and Moroun
A local resident makes her opinion clear outside Earhart Middle School. The U.S. Coast Guard was seeking public opinion on an environmental report predicting “no significant impact” if Manuel J. “Matty” Moroun builds a six-lane span alongside his Ambassador Bridge. And the Coasties sure got it, as a roughly 500-strong crowd chose to forego St.…
MOVEMENT 2009 is back! First 35 artists announced
There’s big news today for international fans of the old electronic head-blast and toxic soft-shoe because Paxahau released a partial list of huge names confirmed for Movement 2009. Said list includes Afrika Bambaata, Bassnectar, Carl Craig, Carl Cox, Derrick May, Z-Trip and Francois K. That’s right folks, Movement ’09 is alive and kickin’ for the…
Tossed and loaded
At local eateries, our salad bowl runneth over
Motor City Cribs
Freestyler and beat-picker Smoke’s west-side digs
Night and Day
THURSDAY • 19 ANNE WALDMAN EYE-POPPING POETICS We don’t often mention academic credentials and connections for the folks we put under the Night & Day spotlight, but we can’t help but point out that Anne Waldman, along with the late Allen Ginsberg, founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in…
Foreclosure fallout
When Greg Sterns left the ministry a decade ago to become a financial manager at Lighthouse of Oakland County, his work involved helping first-time homebuyers navigate their purchases and counseling people about credit and debt management. Holding classes and running meetings, he’d help individuals and families design budgets, deal with bad credit issues and plan…
Sunny days
Forget the strange bedfellows, some truly unholy alliances are going on in politics this year. They were set up by one particular line in President Barack Obama’s inaugural address: “Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light…
Bum rap
There’s a crowd milling outside the Tom Boy Super Market at Second Avenue and Alexandrine in Detroit, even though it’s freezing outside. There’s always a crowd here. This spot, underneath the awning over the front door, is where the area’s bums, beggars, hookers and drug dealers have gathered for years. This is their hangout. The…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Dangerous fun
A few fine points before scheduling that stranger-kidnapping rape fantasy
Case for a czar
Believe it or not, there really is a condition called Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome, according to a friend who studies medical websites. The story she sent me said there was no known cure for women afflicted by “this nightmarish curse,” although it is unknown if anyone has tried sending sufferers the drawing of me that…
Letters to the Editor
Alt-medicine Kudos to Julianne Mattera for her great article “The young and uninsured” (March 11). However, I was a bit alarmed by the mention of young adults who “swap expired pills and self-diagnose ailments through sites like WebMD.” The young and uninsured should be aware that chiropractors, naturopaths and other alternative medicine providers may offer…
Rouge read
Paging through Up The Rouge!, a new book written by former Free Press reporter Joel Thurtell with photographs by the Freep’s Patricia Beck, it becomes clear just how versatile the longest river in southeast Michigan is. What began as a project for the paper in 2005 — when the two journalists spent five days paddling…
Still smoldering
While the uproar over what to do with Cobo Center continues to take center stage, the issue of what do about Detroit’s municipal waste incinerator is quietly playing out in the background, virtually unnoticed. Here’s the latest: Earlier this year, without consulting either the Detroit City Council or holding a meeting of the Greater Detroit…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies
Supreme teams
Despite the opinions of naysayers, hip-hop producers often have very expansive musical tastes. Even though many of the lyrics are often spoken or rapped instead of sung, most good producers have always sampled, manipulated and used splices of songs from other genres, including old-school R&B, jazz and rock. Karriem Riggins, on the other hand, doesn’t…
Couch Trip
Passion & Power: The Technology of Orgasm Wabi Sabi Productions There are two distinct storylines in Emiko Omori and Wendy Blair Slick’s 2007 documentary: the history of technology used to aid female orgasms and the story of Joanne Webb, a Texas woman who was actually prosecuted in 2004 for selling vibrators. That’s right, prosecuted. See,…
‘Detroit all of my life’
I was born in Highland Park in 1962. I was raised in the suburb of Berkley. I’ve lived in Troy, Pontiac and Royal Oak as well. I’ve lived in the inner city of Detroit and in “challenged areas,” where vacant lots from torn-down houses remind me of the open farming lands that I tilled as…
A natural selection
A new dining destination for raw food enthusiasts, serving scrumptious, cashew-strewn fare, with vegetables, nuts, fruits, sprouts and seeds — plain, grated, mashed, pulverized and liquefied. Salads feature a ton of ingredients, such as spinach with tomato, onion, carrots, currants, apples and pecans. A sweet beet slaw tosses in apples, raisins, lemon juice and agave…
Last House on the Left
This remake is little more than a glossed-up, pointless exercise in graphic violence, materially different from the original only in higher production values and the sad fact this stuff shocked back in ’72. The well-heeled Collingwood family checks in at their remote lakeside summer home, and teen daughter Mari promptly takes the car into town…
Still Dangerous
Once upon a time long ago, it was against punk rock rules to like Irish rockers Thin Lizzy. Then it became all indie irono-rawk to pretend to like Thin Lizzy. Now, because rock ‘n’ roll history is but a postmodernistic muddle of context-free sound files and revised histories, and since suburban teenagers forming garage bands…
Race to Witch Mountain
This snappy spit-shine of the ’70s movies cranks up the effects, action and excitement, despite being disposable and formulaic. Dwayne Johnson (no more “Rock” please) has had spotty success as a major action star, but when it comes to family fare, dude is money. He’s perfectly suited to the role of cynical ex-mob man Jack…
Crash and Burn
Sinner’s brand of metal is the kind of industrial Neanderthal fun that’s made bands like Manowar famous. In fact, you could probably call Sinner “Manowar-lite.” It’s the sort of loincloth-and-swords metal that’s responsible for birthing both the best of metal (Iron Maiden) and some of its more abhorrent offspring (DragonForce). Sinner first cut their teeth,…
Young virtuoso
Though an adaptation of David Goodis’ livre noir, “Down There,” Truffaut hardly takes his straight-faced source material seriously, opting instead for narrative asides, flippant genre-hopping and a kid-in-jeopardy melodrama. Charlie (Charles Aznavour) is a once-famous pianist who suffered a Greek tragedy of marital infidelity and retreated from the world. Now a honky-tonk piano player in…
Midnight at the Movies
There ain’t no running from the legacy of his names. But Justin Townes Earle’s first two releases suggest he may (eventually) measure up to the heritage of his father Steve Earle and namesake troubadour Townes Van Zandt. His sophomore album, Midnight at the Movies, while still in thrall at times to an old-timey sound, feels…
No Line on the Horizon
I’m not ready to sup the prevailing critical Kool-Aid about this album being a return to The Unforgettable Fire’s sonic mysteriousness and lyrical obscurity. (Remember “Elvis Presley and America,” Bono’s Mad Libs attempt at lyrical improvisation?) If that were the case, then why does all the art direction in the CD booklet point to a…
Thorn of Thrones
After glancing over the personnel involved in the project known as Giant Brain, expectations were high when pushing “play.” Phil Durr (Big Chief) plays guitar; Eric Hoegemeyer (Crud, Gold Cash Gold, Deep See Sound System, Rustbelt Studios) takes drum and percussion duties. And Al Sutton (Rust Belt Studios) is in charge of the loops, programming…
Years of Refusal
Most celebrities of Morrissey’s stature become comfortably lazy. They might occasionally tour, idly tossing out the hits as musical bones for those who still believe. But they wouldn’t do anything as vulgar as still crave cultural relevancy and expect to actually grow their fan base! But we’re talking Morrissey — a man who still never…
